South Florida fires basketball coach Orlando Antigua
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- South Florida has fired coach Orlando Antigua 13 games into his third season at the American Athletic Conference school.
Athletic director Mark Harlan announced the move Tuesday, saying assistant coach Murry Bartow will lead the Bulls (6-7, 0-2) for the remainder of the season.
Antigua leaves with a 17-48 record at USF, which hired the former Kentucky and Memphis State assistant under John Calipari in March 2014.
The Bulls went 9-23 in Antigua's first year and finished 8-25 last season. The dismissal, with more than two years left on Antigua's contract, comes three days after a 70-56 home loss to Houston dropped the team's record under him in conference play to 7-30.
Harlan said in a statement that the change was made following a "thorough and deliberate review" of the program. A search for a successor will begin immediately.
Bartow's first game as interim coach is Saturday at SMU.
Bartow has served stints as a head coach at Alabama-Birmingham and East Tennessee State. He was 103-83 in six seasons at UAB from 1996 to 2002 and 224-169 over 12 seasons at East Tennessee State from 2003 to 2015.